[dohboi]

A wrote: "You are arguing that disbelief in the settled science attracts people who are not members of the rare subgroup possessing "high intelligence", and that those sorts overlap the membership of the Republican party, and then go on to assert some knowledge about the disbelief in the science by the leadership of the Republican party by their statements concerning that topic.

My assertion is that the first is true..."

Glad we can agree on something. And since I never made the second claim, we are pretty much in agreement on everything, except perhaps the significance of something or other.

I'm sure most of the Repug leaders are quite intelligent and, as you suggest, completely mendacious.

[dohboi]

ibon, thanks for those pics. Especially the cats!

[Ibon]

ibon, thanks for those pics. Especially the cats!

They are hanging up here holding steady, if all goes well they will recolonize one day the lowlands as humans recede from the landscape. These ocelots, mountain lions and jaguars will one day den in the concrete being broken down by the roots of tenacious fig trees.

[Cid_Yama]

The right social circles? So this is about climbing some ladder? Did you ever think about where that ladder goes? Closer to the corporate butt, so you can kiss it more personally.

So, is that what Republicans are all about, climbing up the gravy train? Personal beliefs don't matter? Sacrificing personal integrity for a little more gravy?

TRUE Patriotism is not letting them do what they are doing to our country. Speaking up and speaking out.

It's not what you obviously think it is. Sacrificing our national integrity to the trust that our politicians will do the right thing, keeping your mouth shut rather than admit there is a problem.

Thinking everyone believes as you do, because those you associate with do. You self-selected for that. When you are in the bubble it seems everyone believes as you do. But Conservative beliefs are only shared by 30 some percent of the nations population.

There just aren't that many ticket-punchers out there.

[Newfie]

I dislike talking about intelligence as in an IQ test. It tests one set of parameters. There are other forms of intelligence: musical ability, social interaction, etc. that can count for a lot. Someone can have a high IQ and no common sense or no ability to project into the future.

[onlooker]

Not only that intelligence does not function in some sort of vacuum it works in tandem with emotional maturity or lack thereof. Meaning a person may by highly intelligent yet not apt to make sound choices because of emotional influences and certain emotional attachments and biases. Also, as we know emotion can cloud optimum cognitive functioning. All this being part of emotional maturity. This all has a bearing on the subjects we discuss on this site because they are important and emotionally charged so that some are apt to cling to certain preconceived notions or beliefs based on some emotional factor.

[dohboi]

The Schwarze-nator is of course the exception to most every rule, for better or worse:

http://www.alphr.com/science/1002192/ar ... -s-hard-to

Arnold Schwarzenegger just came up with a climate change argument that’s hard to argue with

[dissident]

The Schwarze-nator is of course the exception to most every rule, for better or worse:

http://www.alphr.com/science/1002192/ar ... -s-hard-to

Arnold Schwarzenegger just came up with a climate change argument that’s hard to argue with

Horse and buggy salesmen did not have a corporate mafia to skew public opinion to reject the car. They did not have lobbyists who made sure politicians favoured their product. Exxon and the rest of the denier filth want to freeze time and have the world drive horses and buggies forever.

[jedrider]

Aren't psychopaths smart? Of course, they are. Are they self-deluded? Probably.

Does humanity deserve the leadership that it has? YES, apparently.

Seems like the psychopaths have arranged a system in which they thrive,
so there's nothing to change [for them]. Maybe, they are self-policing?

[jedrider]

Remember, the pendulum always swings, we are at Peak Polarity right now. This will change and I do predict that as the Millennial generation ages into political power they will create a strong national consensus. They are a more consensus seeking generation.

That's sort of hopeful. I hope you're right. They will need some consensus building which we are totally lacking today.

[dohboi]

Well, the new 'consensus' in the US could well be essentially fascist, if Trump, with the support of the nearly billion dollars the Koch's have pledged to support the most denialst candidate this election, gains the presidency.

Unity is a pretty word, but the reality is not necessarily all that pretty.

[Ibon]

Well, the new 'consensus' in the US could well be essentially fascist, if Trump, with the support of the nearly billion dollars the Koch's have pledged to support the most denialst candidate this election, gains the presidency.

Unity is a pretty word, but the reality is not necessarily all that pretty.

My suggestion of unity was not relevant to the current election cycle. The pendulum I referred to that will swing back toward consensus will last a couple of decades. We are approaching maximum Peak Polarity with the current election cycle and these extremes do have a role in the kinetic energy that they give the pendulum as it approaches maximum and starts its descent toward consensus.

[dohboi]

I'm not sure how you can separate elections from general swings in political sentiment. Hitler was, after all, elected.

I'm not making any claim to cause and effect--the election may be a manifestation of your putative 'swing.'

But ultimately, I'm not sure there is any clear historical evidence that 'swings in polarity' have any clear basis in reality. One can always cherry pick particular events to support just about anything as some kind of historical process, but reality is generally quite a bit more messy.

But to humor you a bit further, what do you prophecy that the new 'consensus' will focus around, if not fascism? What will be require to get there.

We certainly swung from a great deal of polarity to a kind of exhausted unity in the middle of the 1800's, but it took a very bloody civil war to make that 'swing' back. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?

[Tanada]

I'm not sure how you can separate elections from general swings in political sentiment. Hitler was, after all, elected.

I'm not making any claim to cause and effect--the election may be a manifestation of your putative 'swing.'

But ultimately, I'm not sure there is any clear historical evidence that 'swings in polarity' have any clear basis in reality. One can always cherry pick particular events to support just about anything as some kind of historical process, but reality is generally quite a bit more messy.

But to humor you a bit further, what do you prophecy that the new 'consensus' will focus around, if not fascism? What will be require to get there.

We certainly swung from a great deal of polarity to a kind of exhausted unity in the middle of the 1800's, but it took a very bloody civil war to make that 'swing' back. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?

I am known to be a believer in historical cycles and I believe we are heading for an increasingly Authoritarian style of government based on every historical pattern you can probably name. It turns out despite all the protestations to the contrary the average human being actually wants structure where they know the rules and so long as they stay inside the rules they believe nothing bad will happen.

You can call the top layer of government by any name you choose from pure bureaucracy to military dictatorship, but ultimately they all have the same outlines. Joe6P has a set of rules to follow that will allow him/her to be born, grow to adulthood learning life skills necessary for adulthood and spend time as an adult producing enough to sustain themselves and enough excess to sustain the culture.

The internal structure of the culture can vary widely from free love to arranged marriages for life, but no matter what the cultural context there are rules known to everyone growing up in the culture that allow them to function together in a broad 'consensus' of how things ought to be. For people especially in the west the broad consensus from around 12,000 ybp to around 1850 was pretty simple, most people were farmers or ranchers working to supply the food to support the entire culture. Drop a farmer from ancient Egypt on a southwest American farm circa 1849 and he/she will understand their role in society, sow, tend, reap, prepare. 90 to 95 percent of all humans living in ancient Maya culture, or Egypt, or Greece, or Babylon or India, or China were farmers. In some cultures their was a limited upward mobility, in others almost none, but the over all portion of farmers was a constant across all cultures that engaged in agriculture.

Starting around 1850 individual farm productivity started rising because fossil fuels allowed the easy exploitation of Phosphate minerals, followed about 50 years later by the exploitation of artificial nitrates as an additional fertilizer. Then as 'progress' took place the first artificial herbicides and pesticides were developed. Mechanical plowing and harvesting using fossil fuel powered devices was actually a much later development than most people realize. Phosphates, Nitrates as fertilizer made the crops more robust on a plant by plant basis but you still had to have a large number of farmers weeding and engaging in direct manual pest control. In order to do manual weed and pest control crops have to be planted in a way that allows a human being to access each plant in the field. When selective herbicides eliminated the weeds and selective pesticides eliminated the insect pests you did not need manual access to every plant, so you could space the plants much closer together.

Each step of fertilizer improvement, weed and pest control allowed more and more food to be grown on the same area of land and created the real catch 22. We took the 90 percent of the population that used to know from early childhood exactly what they would be doing for their lifespan and removed that security. Now they had to choose a 'career path'. It did not happen over night because agricultural improvements caused by fossil fuels took place in stages, and at first the excess farm kids could easily get jobs working in factories making goods for other people working in other factories making other things.

The advantages of fossil fuels also worked through the manufacturing system. A factory initially was wind or water milling that used power available in the off season to manufacture other things than flour. Starting around the 1850's steam power got reliable enough to make large factory complexes possible in cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago. However over the period from 1850-1920 a series of modest improvements caused labor demand for factories to exceed supply of farm workers no longer needed as farm labor, by 1920 this effect was drawing to a close. This lead to the first ban of immigration into the United States ever, because the flood of immigrants was no longer needed to work in the constantly growing factory system, the culture had reached a saturation point. The 'Roaring 20's' were an economic boom time because everyone who wanted a job had one at a culturally good wage. However people were still having very large families and their were always more young people reaching adulthood faster than the older generation was passing away. By 1928 even with the moratorium on immigration there was once again a labor glut in the USA, and when the dust bowl chased tens of thousands off the farm it just compounded the problem. Hello Great Depression.

So here we are 80 years later in a 'post industrial' economy where most people can not find jobs in agriculture or manufacturing. Worse the so called service economy can only work if there is someone who needs your service, and almost all services are luxury demand, not essential. Just because a physician and a waitress both do 'service work' does not mean that the two lines of work are equally valuable to the culture. If times are tight you will skip eating out to pay for visiting the doctor because one is a luxury and the other a necessity.

Our biggest catch 22 is we now have Billions of people with nothing necessary to contribute to the culture. What will we do with all these excess people? Traditionally the Government would hire excess people and put them in hazardous jobs like marching off the war to get weeded out of the gene pool, but in a nuclear weapon era this option is to say the least, limited. Well no matter we have not prepared for Peak Oil or Climate Change so one or the other or both will soon put limits on food production. Congratulations humans, you did it to yourselves.

[dohboi]

Thanks for the overview of elements of the history of the last couple centuries. I couldn't glean from it where you thought what pendulum was swinging from what pole to what other pole, but then I tend to be a bit dense about these things.

By the way, as my comments above indicate, I tend to think that you are right when you say, "we are heading for an increasingly Authoritarian style of government"

I just don't think that there is anything totally deterministic about it. Events could change that trajectory, as could effective people's movements of various sorts.

And if there was some overriding basic human need for structure that was overwhelmingly more powerful than human needs for freedom, I can't quite see where the frequent rebellions and revolutions against said 'structure' throughout history would have come from.

As some philosopher or other once said, iirc, "Structure and lack of structure are equally lethal to the human spirit."

[dohboi]

"jobs like marching off [to] war"

Plenty of that going on already, and more to come. And making it a 'voluntary' army means it is mostly the neediest who turn desperately to that weeding process, leaving the successfully greedy to breed more greedy little bastards at will!!

[Subjectivist]

Thanks for the overview of elements of the history of the last couple centuries. I couldn't glean from it where you thought what pendulum was swinging from what pole to what other pole, but then I tend to be a bit dense about these things.

By the way, as my comments above indicate, I tend to think that you are right when you say, "we are heading for an increasingly Authoritarian style of government"

I just don't think that there is anything totally deterministic about it. Events could change that trajectory, as could effective people's movements of various sorts.

And if there was some overriding basic human need for structure that was overwhelmingly more powerful than human needs for freedom, I can't quite see where the frequent rebellions and revolutions against said 'structure' throughout history would have come from.

As some philosopher or other once said, iirc, "Structure and lack of structure are equally lethal to the human spirit."

Which frequent rebellions did you have in mind? The French Revolution and the Syrian Civil War are both from crop failures making the average person feel like they had nothing to lose by trying to change things. I could even argue the Russian 1917 Revolution along the same lines. The American Revolution was more about people used to taking what they wanted from the weaker natives being told they were no longer allowed to do so IMO.

[Pops]

Interestingly I see the US becoming less polarized than at any point in our history. The pendulum is finally swinging toward our professed unity and equality and away from our previous tacit division and class structure. In just about every realm from religion to sex to marriage to racial bias big walls have fallen in the last decade or two. Many legal and structural inequalities have been torn down, and there is an assault on institutional bias that I think is close in intensity to that of the civil rights era.

Granted, there is a vocal segment of the population that is really pissed about it. The fact they no longer see themselves as necessarily having the upper hand by birth is quite a shock. Almost overnight they were forced into Political Correctness, they were forced to stop saying the N word in polite company, stop pinching the secretary's ass, stop making queer jokes, stop slamming every and any church they did not attend... all because: Archie Bunker. But the important point is at no time did they ever change their attitudes. They didn't have an egalitarian epiphany, they were simply shamed into silence.

Then elect a black president! Of course they would see the government that forces them from their centuries long position of power as being tyrannical and illegitimate.

The US was always divided by class (whites, male, property owners) and race, we hate to admit it but it is fact. And as it always does, class privilege led the favored group to believe they deserved the distinction. The feeling of "losing our country" comes from the realisation that the old privileges are being erased.

Except for the ownership part that is...

So having said all that ...

The "problem" with PO is the "solution" to Peak Carbon.
To be honest, I am kinda happy about the scare GW has put into society, it's way more successful in addressing PO than PO ever was.

The biggest threat of PO was never the absolute loss of cheap energy, it is the possibility of a rapid drop in flow. A constant decline in oil production of say, one percent per year over 100 years could surely be mitigated. The constantly high price would force substitution. On the other hand, a rapid decline in flow would created wobbling oil market with a highly volatile price. Really, it is the wobble that is the economy killer, and a dead economy is big trouble. Regardless of all the platitudes on this site about consumption, it supports us all.

GW is the opposite. If nations can agree to address carbon with caps, alts, taxes or whatever measure to lower energy consumption, they automatically give the economy a stable signal to act to lower reliance on FFs. That is the only mitigation for peak oil.

So PO and GW do not pose a catch 22 at all.

.

[dohboi]

Yes, probably no revolt or revolution is the result of only one motivation. Every event in history has multiple causes.

Rejection of feudal structure was certainly not the only cause of the French Revolution, but neither was famine it's only cause (though it surely played an important roll in its timing). Similarly, there are a number of other causes to the disruptions in Syria other than drought, however important a roll that tragedy was in setting up its pre-conditions.

But pretty much every revolt and revolution is in some way a rejection of the current established order, however much of a role various kinds of deprivations may play. And I wouldn't limit it to political revolutions. The Protestant Reformation was certainly a rejection of many aspects of Roman Catholic structures. Other religious movements have been similarly motivated.

[dohboi]

Pops--interesting take--as usual.

Though loud, the dissenting minority is getting smaller and smaller. Most people accept GW science, think gay marriage is fine, are not particularly racist against blacks, Mexicans or even Muslims.

But those that are certainly are getting a lot of press lately. And the positive response from some to the particularly ugly rhetoric from some certain right-wing a-holes err, mouthpieces is certainly...disturbing.